ST. BATHANS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 184, 13 September 1872, Page 3

ST. BATHANS.

Septemberß. . In this, my first communication, I will come down " square," and say at once that I will not try to deserve the high character ' which you have given your late correspondent, " A .8.C." He didn't indulge in abuse of persons, even when they may have deserved it. Now, that is just what I like—showing up evil-doers. So let this notice serve as a timely warning to all persons living within the lines of my beat, that each false step they take will be gladly seized on by me as the daintiest of morsels for the columns of the 4 Chronicle.'

Unfortunately I have no scandals to begin with. The miners, and even the publicans and storekeepers, though not always immaculate, are all disgustingly good and virtuous at the present time, I must then betake myself to tamer topics, and they are but few, and mostly uninteresting.

The winter would seem to have returned. We had a heavy fall of snow on Friday night, and a very severe frost last night; and, for the present, miners at the Four Mile and here are obliged to remain idle.

Scandinavian scrip are in request at £4is to £4<7 10s. Several shares have changed hands at the first figure, and a few at the last named, within the last month. Shareholders .are now asking £50 —such is the current conversation here.

One of our storekeepers had his slumbers; disturbed at an early hour this morning by a noise as if some heavy mass was being rolled over the snow-clad roof of his bedroom, in which there is a fireplace. Listening attentively for a moment, he distinctly heard an unusual noise at the top of the chimney, and then a quick rustling •of something coming down inside, followed by a soft thud on the fire-grate. As the idea of burglars flashed across his mind, the storekeeper instinctively laid hold of a revolver, when a loud scream from the fireplace assured him that there was another biped as much frightened if not more hurt than himself. Some wag had dropped a live gander from the outside, and the bird, half suffocated by his tormentor, and alighting on his feet in hot ashes, with the first recovery of his breath, piped out his loudest note, and the storekeeper, feeling thankful that it was a gander, and not a burglar, gladly liberated the unwilling intruder.—l am, &c., Otago.